By Kharisma McIlwaine
Philadelphia is known for having a wide variety of community-based cafes and coffee shops. The Monkey & The Elephant is among them.
Founded in 2015 by Lisa Miccolis, The Monkey & The Elephant is a 501C3 non-profit organization that is dedicated to supporting young adults ages 18-24 that have aged out of the foster care system. It is the first and only non-profit coffee shop in Philadelphia that employs former foster care youth. Since its inception, The Monkey & The Elephant continues to support former foster youth through employment, training and mentorship programming.
Kamal Marell, executive director of The Monkey & The Elephant spoke with the SUN about the invaluable work of the organization as well as their upcoming fundraiser.
Drawn to The Monkey & The Elephant because of their mission, Philadelphia native Marell began his work with the organization in 2022.
“I came on in October of 2022 and primarily the goal of The Monkey & The Elephant is to fortify former foster youth with professional skills, employment, and offer a supportive community for them in order to create sustainability in their lives post foster care,” Marell said.
“What The Monkey & The Elephant does is support and employ young adults, who age out of foster care between 18 and 24. We provide that employment through the cafe and provide weekly professional development for the young adults. In a way it’s providing them with access, resources and opportunities that should give them other opportunities while they’re navigating life.”
So often the conversation about foster youth focuses on the placement of children. While that work is extremely important as every child and human being deserves to have a safe place to call home, we don’t hear as much about what happens to young people after they age out of the system. We also don’t hear enough about what their support system looks like during the next phase of their lives. The Monkey & The Elephant seeks to help guide the youth involved in their programs with that transition.
“We provide a space that allows them to gain that experience that they’ll need to go out into the real world,” Marell said. “We sort of do it in an empathetic, trauma informed way. I think from an impact standpoint, it’s amazing to see the transformation that some of the young adults have when they first start the program and what it looks like as they travel through the employment training program through each stage. Not only working at the cafe, but also from a professional development standpoint and the buckets we take from when it comes to our curriculum, job readiness, health and wellness and financial literacy… all things that are important for young adults.”
In addition to the life skills that The Monkey & The Elephant provides for young people through their employment training program, they also provide consistency, support and a safe place for young people to learn, grow and excel.
“It’s amazing seeing that we have young adults that are committed to going through the program that are committed to showing up everyday and being vulnerable with what they’ve gone through,” Marell said. “It’s never easy to commit to something when you’ve been through systems that have been temporary. For us we want to be a permanent space for them that can allow them to grow. I think we’ve seen that and it’s amazing to see what kind of opportunities they take on after.”
“Even if it doesn’t work out for them the first go round, we’re always open to keeping our doors open for those to come back for employment,” he said. “We all need a second chance. This space was created so that they can feel welcome — always.”
Marell intentionally cultivated an environment where guests and employees of The Monkey & The Elephant feel welcome within its doors.
“It’s something I really wanted to nurture,” Marell said. “Shout out to the previous executive director and the founder as well for creating a space where it sort of felt like home. I look at the participants as sort of like my little cousins or younger brothers and sisters. We wanted to have a space where agency is created, where they have a say and an opinion in the space. Creating a place that felt like home for them was really important for me. At home from my experience growing up, there was always a level of accountability that came along with my responsibility. So along with feeling like you have a space that is your own, there’s a level of accountability that comes with the job here and being a part of the program.”
As a non-profit organization, the work that The Monkey & The Elephant provides for youth requires the support of the Philadelphia community. Their upcoming fundraiser — “Empowering Tomorrow” — hopes to garner even more of that support.
“It’s just a great opportunity for our community to come together to support in different ways from a monetary standpoint, but I think about the way that we connect and how our resources continue to grow by us getting together and sharing those resources,” Marell said. “It’s a way to continue to expand on our program as well as supporting the program participants that we have working at the cafe.”
“All the money that we raise goes directly to the program participants and the programming that we need to make sure this place continues to run,” Marell continued. “It’ll be a great night, we’ll have live coffee stations so people can taste products. We’ll have swag bags, a table where people can purchase some of our goods and I think I’ll also be doing a guest dj set. We have a list of sponsorship opportunities, as well as [an opportunity to purchase] ads in our virtual ad book.”
“The sponsorship ranges from $5,000, which is our gold mug, and I want to say our most affordable ad is $50, so there are different opportunities,” Marell concluded. “On our website, there is a landing page for the event to find out more information. We have a sponsorship pdf that is attached to the landing page.”
“Empowering Tomorrow” will take place on Friday, April 12 from 6-9pm at Morton Contemporary Art Gallery located at 115 S 13th Street Philadelphia, PA 19107. For more information on how you can support them, visit: themonkeyandtheelephant.org, or reach out to them directly at: [email protected] and be sure to follow @mandecafe on IG.
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